Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Your Mama Also Hears...

The online and print media is all agog and atwitter over today's announcement that beleaguered and
publicly pilloried Los Angeles Dodgers owner/executive Frank McCourt has finally reached an agreement to sell the bankrupt baseball team (and media rights) for 2-and-some billion bucks to a coalition that
includes long-retired professional hoopster Magic Johnson.

While all that sports stuff was being hollered about Your Mama received a covert communique from a savvy and always exquisitely informed real estate industry acquaintance we'll call Heidi N. Holmbyhills who divulged to Your Mama that Mister McCourt's new ex-wife Jamie—the two were bitterly and expensively divorced earlier this year—has plans to significantly lighten her own extensive residential real estate load.

In addition to cash, prizes, a couple of delectable ocean front abodes in Malibu and a condo in Colorado, (ex)Missus McCourt was granted in her divorce sole ownership of the erstwhile couple's primary residence, a humongous Neo-Something style pile directly across the street from The Playboy Mansion in the posh Holmby Hills area of Los Angeles between Beverly Hills and Bel Air. The McCourts bought the prominent property back in 2004 from the very dapper Babyface Edmonds for a newsworthy $21,250,000.

According to Heidi, (ex-)Missus McCourt has on the
hush-hush recently allowed one of the Platinum Triangles fanciest and
most
successful real estate agents to discreetly show her heavily secured and gated Holmby Hills estate with a fat asking price of $65,000,000.

The Los Angeles County Tax Man shows the property spans 2.58 acres and is loosely described in divorce court documents published online (in .pdf form) as having—we paraphrase—15,000
square feet of interior space that includes, among other necessities and luxuries, 4
bedrooms, 10 bathrooms, a fully-equipped work out room,
dance studio, guest quarters and a brand new, partially underground complex with Olympic-length indoor swimming pool and adjoining massage, dressing, showering, steam/sauna, and ablution facilities. Missus McCourt, it seems, is a dedicated lap swimmer and the estate's
outdoor pool was not suitable for her watery endeavors. The extensively
engineered addition is shown under construction above (at right of
image), but is now completed and fully landscaped. The new pool complex is essentially invisible from the motor court and lawn that covers the roof.

Mister McCourt and (ex-)Missus McCourt, for those who haven't already heard the story, created a west coast whirlwind in 2004 when they swooped in from Boston and scooped the Los Angeles Dodgers from Rupert Murdoch's NewsCorp for $430,000,000 and almost, as mentioned above, immediately shoveled out another $21,250,000 to acquire their Holmby Hills estate. They quickly spent another $6,500,000 to buy an adjoining estate with substantial Sunset Boulevard frontage and reportedly purchased for use by staff and guests.

At about the same time the McCourts moved to California they splashed out upwards of $6,000,000 on a 3 bedroom and 2.5 bathroom ski condo in Vail, CO. In 2007 the real estate high-hoggers shelled out $27,250,000 to snatch up an iconic John Lautner designed ocean front home in Malibu—bought from then-still-coupled Courtney Cox and David Arquette—and quickly tossed down another $18,975,000 to buy the perfectly charming but much less architecturally spectacular beach shack next door where (ex-)Missus McCourt received conditional permission to build an beachfront lap pool.

In August of last year (2011)—after they split but before their divorce was finalized in early 2012—the ferociously feuding McCourts sold the less lavish of their two Holmby
Hills residences, an 8,000-plus square foot rambler with 8 bedrooms and
10 bathrooms on 1.63 acres. Records show the property was sold for $6,525,000 to a
corporate entity.

The McCourts own (and maybe still own, we're not sure) a number of other high-priced properties from Massachusetts to Cabo San Lucas. Your Mama spoke about these properties in greater detail back in October 2009 when we took a long spin through their famously extensive property portfolio. If any of y'all feel the need to dig deeper, grab a cocktail and take a turn through that very lengthy discussion.

11 comments:

Petra's Tittie Plumper
said...

I used to work at a boutique food vendor in Malibu and Mrs. Ex-McCourt came into our store several times. Had no idea who she was until our owner informed me. She was always completely sweet and charming. Makes me wonder what Mr. Mccourt is really like...

Anyhoo, as for this place, I'm sorry but it looks a dump. Gives off the same vibe as that Donald Abbey Bradbury monstrosity from a few weeks bank. Just too much house, and too little style.

Y'all need to take a pill, grab a cocktail or two and read the divorce papers via the link that Mama provided. I find the lives of the rich and famous fascinating, especially when all the details are laid out for all the world to see!

DC Guy is right, but you need a few cocktails before you dive into reading the divorce papers. $2M for her lawyers is only a start. You won't believe the expenses these two people have. Too bad after thirty years together they could not have worked it out. The divorce papers are a must read. Just WOW WOW.

Er...I think you added an extra 0 to what was paid to Murdoch, Mama. Not surprising when such figures are being discussed; it does boggle the mind. I had hoped Mr McCourt would end up penniless from all this, but alas he seems to have made out like a bandit.

Wasn't the main house Jack Benny's last residence, after he decamped from his long-time Lucy-adjacent abode at 1002 N. Roxbury? Man, I must have been a train-conductor in a past life, the way I connect long, meandering strings of words together like a mile of boxcars. Caboose.